When you look around the cat food aisles at the grocery store, you’ll notice that chicken is a pretty common ingredient. Even in foods that don’t list chicken as the primary flavor on the front of the pack, it’s common to see chicken seasoning, chicken meal, or chicken liver somewhere on the ingredients list. So, a chicken allergy in cats is difficult to negotiate, and sometimes it is really difficult to diagnose.
If you think your cat may be allergic to chicken, you will find the following information particularly helpful.
What is a Food Allergy?
The terms “allergy” and “intolerance” are often used interchangeably, but that is not technically accurate. Here’s the difference:
Food Intolerances: The gastrointestinal system cannot properly digest or metabolize a particular food or substance, resulting in any or all of the following symptoms:
- Blooming
- Discomfort
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Flatulence
- Gas
Clinical signs of food intolerance usually appear quickly after ingestion of the substance in question and do not require previous food exposure.
Have a food allergy: Food allergies involve the immune system, with a food/ingredient (most commonly protein) causing a hypersensitivity reaction. Food allergies can also cause gastrointestinal signs, but we rarely see anaphylactic reactions (severe swelling, rapid heart rate, or difficulty breathing) to food in cats. In most cases, food allergies cause skin reactions, including:
- Pruritus (itchy skin)
- Red skin
- Bald patches (alopecia), usually from over-grooming
- Red, itchy ears
- Lumps, bumps, or scabs on the skin
The signs of a food allergy do not appear until at least the second time the substance is ingested, and it can even appear after months or years of eating the food without any problems.
The most common ingredients that cause food allergies are chicken, beef, eggs, and fish, which can make finding an appropriate diet for a cat with food allergies difficult! More difficult, however, is diagnosing a food allergy.
How Is Chicken Allergy Diagnosed?
The first part of diagnosing a chicken allergy is figuring out that chicken is really the problem. This usually involves several trips to the vet to rule out other potential causes and treat any secondary problems such as infection. Some of the conditions that can cause similar symptoms to food allergies include:
- External parasites (fleas, mites)
- Flea allergy dermatitis: A more severe immune reaction to flea saliva
- Environmental allergies
- Bacterial or fungal infections: These often occur in conjunction with food allergies, invading inflamed, moist, or broken skin
There are several ways to diagnose a food allergy, including:
- Blood test: These tests look at how the immune system responds to allergens. They can be used to narrow down food or environmental reactions, and they can look for specific substances or substances (eg, poultry, pollen, or dust). However, the reliability of this type of test is hotly debated.
- Intradermal test: This involves injecting small amounts of the allergen under the skin to look for reactions. It is more reliable than blood tests, but it requires sedation and can be expensive.
- Elimination diet trial: This involves feeding a diet with a novel protein for 4 to 6 weeks. It is used to determine if food is the problem and to determine which ingredients are safe/unsafe. This is the cheapest option but can be a very slow process.
Using an Elimination Diet to Diagnose Chicken Allergy
An elimination diet works by feeding your cat a food that contains a novel protein. This means using a diet based on one type of meat, and one that your cat has never eaten before. Because food allergies tend to develop over time with repeated exposure to that substance, using a new protein source means your cat shouldn’t react to it.
As mentioned earlier, chicken is one of the most common ingredients found in cat food, even those that don’t mention it on the front of the pack, so it can be tricky to find a commercial food to use as an elimination diet. . Another obstacle is that, for cats fed a wide variety of different foods and ingredients, it can be difficult to find a new protein. We also want to avoid other proteins that are often implicated in food allergies (beef, eggs, and fish).
Proteins commonly used for an elimination diet include:
- Duck
- Turkey
- Venison
- Rabbit
Good options for an elimination diet are:
- Hydrolyzed cat food: Food that has undergone a process of hydrolyzation to break down proteins into small fragments, making them more likely to trigger an immune reaction.
- Raw food diet: Either a commercially prepared meal or using a meat source. The usual precautions should be taken into account when starting your cat on a raw food diet.
- Fresh food diet: Similar principle to raw feeding but uses a small number of ingredients that are cooked, then frozen.
To successfully try the elimination diet, you need to only feed your cat the selected food, with no other food or feed for 4 to 6 weeks.
If your cat’s clinical signs improve during the food trial, we can conclude that the food is the problem. Once we know we’re dealing with a food allergy, we can carefully narrow down the culprits one by one.
Once your cat has settled on the new food, you can slowly introduce one type of protein at a time to find out which ingredient is causing the allergy. You should expect to see a reappearance of their clinical signs within a few days. If there is no reaction, wait at least 7 days before trying another substance. If a food triggers an allergy, stop it and wait at least 14 days before trying another.
How Are Chicken Allergies Treated?
If we find out that our cat is allergic to chicken, the treatment is quite simple: no more chicken! Remember to check the ingredients list carefully for the hidden chicken.
Cats allergic to chicken may also be allergic to other ingredients, so following a high-quality diet with only one or two proteins and no preservatives, meat meal, or filler ingredients is best. ways to reduce their risks. It also makes sense to stick to just one or two types of meat in case they develop more allergies and we need to find another new protein.
Cats with severe allergies or allergic to multiple substances may also require medical management of their condition. This may include oral medications or injections to suppress or modify their immune reactions.
Can Food Allergies Be Prevented?
Allergies to certain foods and substances cannot be prevented, but there are ways to reduce the risk and severity of their allergic reaction.
By choosing a high-quality diet based on whole meat, and without artificial preservatives or colors, you minimize the number of ingredients that can trigger an allergic reaction. While offering your cat a variety of flavors may seem like a good idea, it’s really worth limiting the number of ingredients to just a few, as it means there are more options to explore if your cat will develop a food allergy.
Final Thoughts
Having a cat allergic to chicken may seem like a big problem, but it really isn’t a big deal. Getting to the bottom of what’s causing their clinical signs is definitely the most painful part, and once we know what ingredient is at fault, it’s easy to find a diet that suits their needs. Remember to check the back of the pack for any hidden chicken ingredients, and a shorter list of ingredients equals higher quality food with a lower allergy risk.
Featured Image Credit: Kginger, Shutterstock
